The Book of Dead Days

by Marcus Sedgwick

Her voice tailed off as she realized the implication of her words.

  “And,” said Boy, “Valerian went that way.”

  Willow couldn’t see the arm he waved in the darkness, but she understood.

  For a long time they paused, uncertain what to do. The light was no more than a hundred feet away now and they could hear vague sounds coming to them across the stones.

  “What if it is him?” Boy said.

  “We’ll have to go and see,” Willow said.

  Boy pulled a face in the darkness.

  “All right,” he said, “but let’s be careful. Please.”

  Getting down on their hands and knees, they crawled the rest of the way between them and the light, leaving the path and cutting across the rows.

  Boy could feel the damp of the scraggy grass begin to soak through to his knees. His hands pushed into patches of mud, cold but not yet frozen, as it soon would be once the winter hardened.

  After a few minutes he could no longer feel his fingers; a little further and his hands had gone numb.

  Still they pressed on, and as they neared the light and sound they saw they were right to have been cautious. It was obvious even from a distance that they were not the only ones working in the cemetery that night.

  They came to a large tomb, and decided to hide behind it. Peeping around the side of the grave, they had a clear view of an unholy scene.

  Three men were hard at work in a grave. A small glass lantern propped against a gravestone illuminated the scene. The shadows it cast were long and grim. Around them lay various tools, and beside them a mound of earth spoil was piled onto a large sheet of canvas. There was a spare shovel and an iron bar with a hooked end. And there was a large canvas bag with a lump inside it—a large, disturbing lump.

  “Grave-robbers!” whispered Willow in alarm.

  Boy nodded.

  There was no sign of Valerian.

  “Come on,” said Boy.

  Willow ignored him, trying to work out what was wrong with the scene.

  The figures in front of them were shoveling earth back into the grave. It was obvious what was in the large sack next to them on the grass.

  “Wait,” said Willow. “They’re going. Let’s wait.”

  “Let’s just find Valerian and get out of here.”

  “In a minute. Look, they’re going.”

  It was true. The men worked fast and as soon as they had finished it took them no more than a second or two to gather their things, including the hideous bag, and leave. They swung away into the night, straight down the center path of the cemetery, as bold as could be.

  “He never could keep his nose out,” said one. Boy and Willow started at the sound of his voice. It was high and wavered like that of a dying man.

  Boy thought he heard another of them laugh.

  Willow meanwhile was scampering over to the grave.

  Horrified, Boy hesitated by the tomb, unsure if it was more dangerous to follow or to stay where he was. A glance behind at the yawning rows of death in the darkness convinced him to move.

  He caught up with Willow where she crouched on the grass by the grave.

  “Willow,” pleaded Boy, “come on. Please. Let’s just—”

  “Look,” she said. “You would hardly notice they’d been here. A bit of loose soil, but then if it was a new one it would look like that anyway.”

  She nodded at the fresh grave.

  “Boy,” she said, “what was wrong with what you just saw?”

  Boy frowned at her, but it was wasted in the darkness.

  “Apart from the fact they just stole somebody?” he asked, sarcastically.

  “Exactly!” she said. “They stole somebody. Well?”

  Boy shook his head and looked around, expecting the grave-robbers to return at any moment. He noticed a sickly light in the sky. It was still a fair time until dawn, but they could at least see more easily now.

  “Look,” Willow said, “I’m not an expert on the ways of resurrection men, but why would they fill the grave back up once they’d taken the . . . you know?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “All right, so it’s strange, but could we find Valerian and discuss it at home?”

  “Surely they’d just run—unless they needed to cover their tracks.”

  “Or cover something up,” said Boy, despite himself.

  “Or some . . . No, that’s too horrible.”

  They were silent as they stared at the freshly turned soil at their feet. The daylight was coming stronger now, casting weak light across the vast sprawling area of decay around them.

  “Did you hear . . . !” asked Willow.

  Boy nodded, clenching his mouth tight shut and trying not to scream.

  From the grave just by their feet, they could hear a faint ticking sound. It grew louder, became a knocking, regular, strong. Then stopped.

  Boy and Willow clutched each other. The noise started again.

  Then they understood, and both fell scratching and scrabbling madly at the loose pile of cold earth in front of them. Their hands were still numb and sore from their crawl across the cemetery.

  They dug with clawlike hands until they were paws of mud, scraping up fist after fist of grave-earth, until finally, gasping and straining, they reached the lid of the box.

  It was broken. Of course it was broken, for it had already been broached earlier that night to release its horrible but valuable contents.

  Were it not for this, they would not have saved him. In the time it would have taken them to find a pick or a chisel and smash their way clumsily into the coffin, he would have been dead.

  As it was, it was a near thing. Their failing hands barely managed to prize the broken portion of coffin lid out of the ground to reveal the choking, injured and terrified figure lying there.

  Without a word, Boy and Willow fought the remaining soil to give up its prize. Boy began to pull at one of his arms, but as he did so a howl of pain ripped through the air. They put all their weight into pulling him up by his shoulders and then, at last, it was done.

  Valerian lay coughing and spluttering on the mess of grass and earth beside the grave, half dead, his right arm hanging at a disgusting angle.

  Next to him Boy and Willow crouched on all fours, panting like dogs, trying to breathe.

  6

  The journey back to the Yellow House was difficult and slow. Dawn had broken blue and bright before they were halfway back.

  Boy was used to running and trotting after Valerian as he strode around the City, but now Boy and Willow had to lead him cautiously back through the twisting streets. He stopped frequently, the pain from his broken arm coming in surges, overwhelming him. They had tied the end of his right sleeve to the collar of his coat in an attempt to fashion a sling to stop him from doing his arm more damage, but it was far from perfect. Willow had nearly been sick as they had moved Valerian’s arm back into something like the right position, and he had screamed with pain more than once.

  Boy’s mind raced. Who had done this to Valerian? Someone had buried him alive—the man with the cracked voice and the others. Was it just because he had disturbed them at their grave-robbing? Nothing made sense.

  Boy feared for the future. Valerian was difficult, unpleasant, violent and sour, but at least he kept Boy safe, more or less. Now here Boy was leading him back home.

  “Nearly there, are we, Boy?” he would ask. “Nearly there?”

  Boy shuddered. They were nowhere near home yet. Why didn’t Valerian know that?

  But at last they were leaning Valerian against the posts of the outer doors of the Yellow House.

  “Pocket,” mumbled Valerian, unable to say any more.

  Boy fumbled in Valerian’s right-hand pocket until he found his big bunch of heavy keys.

  It took Boy a while to find the right one—a sudden clumsiness overtook him as he listened to Willow trying to soothe Valerian.

  “Just a minute more, Valerian,” she was saying, “and we’ll get you
into bed. You need to rest.”

  Finally Boy turned the tumblers of the lock and they half dragged Valerian inside.

  It seemed to take the last of Valerian’s strength to get upstairs to the first floor, where his bedroom was. Even then Boy and Willow had to do their best to lift him up each of the ancient wooden stairs and then along the corridor.

  They sat him on the bed and pulled his boots off. When they stood up, the huge man had passed out on the covers. They could not move him any more.

  “What about this?” asked Willow, holding up a blanket she had found in a box at the foot of the bed.

  Boy nodded.

  They covered him up with the deep-red quilted blanket and stood back.

  “What are we going to do?” asked Willow quietly.

  Boy said nothing.

  “A doctor,” Willow went on. “We must fetch a doctor.”

  Boy hesitated.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “He hates anyone coming here. He hates doctors. He hates interference.”

  “But he’s in trouble. And we can’t do anything.”

  “There’s only Kepler. I don’t even know if he’s a real doctor, but—”

  “You must go and get him,” said Willow firmly. “You must get him to come and mend Valerian’s arm.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Willow, it’s early still and I haven’t had any sleep. I can’t go now. Look at me! Look at us.”

  They were still covered in grime and mud from the cemetery.

  “Please, Willow,” said Boy, “I’m so tired. . . .”

  At the mention of this word, Willow felt her energy slip away.

  “Well, he’s safe enough for now, I suppose,” she said, looking down where Valerian lay sprawled across the bed.

  She went and sat by him, and then put out a hand to gently touch his forehead. He didn’t react, but he was breathing.

  “I’ll go,” said Boy, sitting down on the bed too. “Just let me have a little sleep first.”

  He looked at his master and felt a rush of panic clear his tiredness for a moment.

  “Valerian? Valerian?” he whispered, but there was no response.

  Glancing away, he saw that Willow had dropped off to sleep beside him.

  Boy put his head on the covers next to hers and they slept a deep, but troubled, sleep.

  7

  Boy woke screaming, waving his arms out in front of him, pushing at a coffin lid he thought was closing him away from the light forever.

  With his hands still covered in the soil from the grave it was all too easy to dream that it was he and not Valerian who had nearly been buried alive. What a way to kill someone, Boy thought.

  He gazed around.

  Valerian’s room. He remembered bits of the night before. He felt like crying, but tears would not come.

  Willow lay snoring softly, tucked in against Valerian’s side like a kitten with its mother.

  Valerian had not moved from where he lay on his back, more unconscious than asleep, Boy guessed.

  And then Valerian spoke.

  “Coming!” he said. “It’s coming . . .”

  Boy jerked upright and stared at Valerian. He’d never heard anyone talk in their sleep before.

  “It’s coming!” Valerian mumbled again, barely opening his mouth. “Time! What’s the time? Boy, where are you?”

  “Here! Valerian, I’m here!”

  But Valerian was not listening, only talking.

  “Time . . . running out now . . . when? What’s the day, today . . . Boy . . . time . . . it’s coming.”

  “What’s coming? What’s the matter?”

  “Time is coming. The time is coming,” said Valerian.

  “What’s happening to you?” Boy persisted, desperate now.

  “Must . . . the book! Oh please . . . the book . . . the Eve of the Year . . .”

  The book again! Boy knelt over Valerian, trying to catch every word, but as he did so a knocking at the front door made him jump. No one ever came to the house— no one unexpected. No one called to see Valerian without having been summoned by Boy. Even then Boy could only remember Kepler visiting.

  For a moment he thought he might have imagined the sound, but it came again, louder this time. Someone was definitely there.

  “Open up!” came a shout from the street.

  Boy left the bedroom and ran lightly down the corridor to a small leaded window that looked over the front of the house and down onto the street.

  He could just see a red feather.

  His heart began to race.

  The knocking on the door resumed, louder than ever.

  He ran on tiptoe back to the bedroom and found Willow awake and blinking in the strong light of late morning. “What’s that noise?”

  “Watchmen outside!” hissed Boy, his eyes wide.

  She nodded.

  “Go and hide in my room,” said Boy. “I’ll get rid of them.”

  “How? Don’t be stupid! We must run!”

  “We can’t!” Boy said, pointing at Valerian.

  “We’ll just have to wait until they’ve gone away.”

  “If they go away,” said Boy.

  They cowered on the bed and listened to the knocking on the door getting louder and louder, just as their hearts were thumping harder and harder in their chests.

  “Open up! We demand you open up!”

  “They know we’re here,” whispered Willow.

  “Maybe,” Boy whispered back, “maybe not. Just don’t move.”

  “Open up! Persons in this house are wanted on suspicion of murder!”

  Boy put out his hand to stop Willow from speaking.

  “I don’t think they know that we’re here. Just wait.”

  The banging on the door went on for another few minutes, and then stopped.

  Willow made to get up from the bed, but Boy mouthed, “Wait.”

  Sure enough, a moment later there was another banging on the door. They waited for it to stop, and then Boy made Willow sit still for nearly five more minutes before he got up and crept to the window.

  “They’ve gone, I think,” he said. “We’ve got to leave before they come back.”

  “But supposing they’ve left someone watching the house?” Willow cried.

  “What is all this noise!”

  Boy and Willow turned to find Valerian standing by the bed.

  He looked like death. His clothes were covered in grave-soil, his hair stuck up at crazy angles and his right arm hung limply by his side, having loosed itself from the makeshift sling.

  “Valerian!” cried Boy.

  “Boy, be quiet! I can’t stand you shouting and wailing all the time! I want quiet!”

  Valerian swung his good arm in front of him wildly. He fumbled in his inside pocket and pulled something out, which he raised to his lips. He tipped his head back and drank, then threw the object to the floor.

  It was a small glass bottle. Valerian wiped the back of his left hand across his lips. “For the pain. One of Kepler’s more useful concoctions.”

  “But your arm!” Boy said.

  “Is broken. Yes,” said Valerian. “But there are more important things to deal with.”

  “Who was that,” Boy asked, “in the cemetery? Who did that to you?”

  Valerian ignored him. “We have much to do, and time is running short.”

  “I don’t believe you!” shouted Willow. “You have us crawling around that death-field all night, hunting for some stupid book. You’re practically buried alive and we dig you out with our bare hands and drag you home! And you won’t even tell us what it’s about! I hate you!”

  Boy turned in horror and shook her by the arm.

  “She doesn’t mean it, Valerian,” he said. “She’s just tired and we don’t need to—”

  But Valerian held up his good hand.

  “No,” he said, “the girl is right. It is time to tell you, but we must act fast. I was a fool last night. I thoug
ht once I had the name it would be a simple thing to find the grave where the book . . . and then . . . And then I was a fool to risk the cemetery. Those were old aquaintances of mine. I owe them money—quite a lot of money for some things they obtained for me once upon a time. Never mind that now. They seemed to think that putting me in the earth was an appropriate way of settling our differences.”

  “But—”

  “Listen. I am alive. I want to stay that way. And on the eve of New Year’s I will face something much worse than a few grubby resurrection men, unless I can find a way out. I need your help,” said Valerian, and then, looking at his broken arm, “more than ever now.”

  8

  “What’s her name?” Valerian asked Boy.

  “Her name is Willow,” she said crossly.

  “Willow,” said Valerian. “Willow, would you go to the Tower and get as many of those as you can find?”

  He pointed with his foot at the empty bottle on the wooden floor.

  “They’re in a cupboard by the narrow window. Boy, where are my keys? Quickly!”

  Boy found the keys on the floor.

  “Here,” said Valerian, giving Willow the key to the Tower.

  Boy stared. Valerian was actually giving one of his keys to someone else. To a girl he barely knew!

  Willow ran off to the Tower.

  “Now, Boy, I need you to do something for me. I wasted time by hunting round the cemetery at random. Why?”

  “Because it was too big,” ventured Boy, “and too dark?”

  “Partly,” said Valerian, “but something else too. Do you suppose that’s the only cemetery in the City?”

  “You don’t even know which cemetery he’s buried in? Beebe?”

  “Exactly. We were in the largest one, but there are others. And what else?”

  Boy thought hard. “Church graveyards!”

  “Good!” cried Valerian. “And have you any idea how many churches and how many churchyards there are in the City?”

  “A dozen?”

  “A hundred and seven. And how long is it going to take us to look through them all?”

  “A very long time?”

  “No,” said Valerian, “it’s not going to take us any time at all, because we’re not going to look. We’re going to find out exactly where Gad Beebe is buried first. I need you to visit someone—the Master of City Burials. I should have done this before, only . . . he’s an awkward man.”